The Town, set amidst the fading (but increasingly fashionable) Irish-American underclass of Boston’s gentrifying Charlestown neighborhood, is a model of crime genre filmmaking, perhaps the best-executed film since July’s Inception. Ten minutes into the first bank robbery in this heist movie, it’s evident that movie audiences are back in capable hands again.
There’s nothing particularly new about The Town. Ben Affleck directs himself as an ace bandit looking to make one last big score so he can get out of the game. Affleck, who helped write this adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s 2005 novel Prince of Thieves, emphasizes his strengths as an actor by playing an older, sadder, and soberer version of the Boston Irish lout in his breakthrough, Good Will Hunting.
In his gang of robbers as competent as a film crew, his right hand man is yet another fearless psycho played by Jeremy Renner of The Hurt Locker. As a boy, Affleck’s character was adopted by Renner’s family when his dad got life without parole. The townie accent employed by Renner, who is from Modesto, California, is so authenticious (as one of the crew explains) that I have no idea what he says. Except that he wants to permanently silence the pretty witness (Rebecca Hall of Vicky Cristina Barcelona) who might be able to identify them to the cocky FBI detective (handsome Jon Hamm of Mad Men). But this damsel in distress brings forth Affleck’s long buried white knight.
We’ve seen it all before, but seldom this finely done.
One of the odder rituals of pop culture commentary is expressing amazement whenever another leading man competently directs a movie: Who could have imagined that Ben Affleck would establish himself as a capable director? After all, Affleck is only the umpty-umpth male movie star to take to directing. Whoever heard of Eastwood, Redford, Costner, Gibson, or Clooney?
Much of directing is acting like you know what you are doing. That’s how you hire the behind-the-scenes wizards who will actually make most of your movie for you, and that’s how you keep them happy on the set. And who is better at acting than an actor?
Granted, Affleck is not better at acting than a lot of actors.
Read the whole thing here and comment upon it below.
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52 comments:
Ever since your praise for "Idiocracy", I've been skeptical of your movie reviews...
If you think the Irish are anhedonic, God knows what you'd make of the Ulster Scots.
Best movie I've seen in a while. Good companion to heat. Interesting to note that the white working class is seldom portrayed in movies undertaken by the typical Hollywood crowd. Could on Affleck for showing them in all their misery and glory. Obviously it's extreme, but only among the white class could you go to a friend, say we need to kick someone's ass and he can't tell you why, and he responds with whose car are we going to take.
I thought he got a little cutesy with the too many instances of "here's a line from earlier in the movie that we'll also use at the end."
Dear Mr. Sailer !
1. Your review is excellent, as always.
2. The topic of your review confirms the tendency which you were the first to notice about "Law and Order" series: to leave out politically untenable and dangerous topics.
"Precious" is an example.
Your devoted reader,
Florida resident.
"Is there any relationship between the Irish fondness for giving each other fraternal concussions, "
Ha, funny. Steve, why are the contemporary Irish-Americans such lousy boxers?
It's understandable why Italians and Jews deserted the fight game. They enjoy life too much.
But why the Irish? The law of averages would seem to dictate at least one Irish-American champ. Esp. so since there are now so many championship belts and weight divisions.
Yet the only good white boxers are E. Europeans. Say what you will about him being boring, W. Klitschko is the best heavyweight to come along since Tyson.
The record of leading men becoming directors is somewhat mixed:
Eastwood, Redford, Clooney - good actors, good/great directors.
Affleck - mostly bad actor, good director
Costner - mostly good actor, terrible director.
I plan to see The Town, but I hate knowing all of the essential plot points in advance, via the trailer.
You went full Irish. You *never* go full Irish.
I wanted to see this movie, then saw all the awful reviews; now maybe I'll see it.
I'm beginning to find these stories about lovable louts a little tiring; all my Irish-American relatives have been middle class people climbing the greasy pole with grim fury, which is itself I think pretty Irish. But not very cinematic.
"It almost seems as if pain didn’t hurt as much, relatively speaking, because all of life hurts a little."
At JFK's funeral Pat Moynihan said to be Irish is to know that in the end the world will break your heart.
i think he saw heat.
Obama's aunt says US obligated to make her citizen
BOSTON – President Barack Obama's aunt, who lived for years illegally in Boston before being granted asylum in May, said the United States has an "obligation" to grant her citizenship.
"If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen," Zeituni Onyango told WBZ-TV in an interview that first aired Monday.
A good reviewer is one who can do something with an unremarkable movie. Jesus Christ is this an example.
What was the frequency and magnitude of the shaky-cam, if any?
The underseen indie "Winter's Bone," is a nice thriller set among rural whites, with a great performance by Jennifer Lawrence as the mountain girl trying to track down her meth-dealing dad to save her family's house. The awesome character actor Garret Dillahunt is in it as well, which is pretty much a guarantee that it'll be interesting.
Interesting to note that the white working class is seldom portrayed in movies undertaken by the typical Hollywood crowd. Could on Affleck for showing them in all their misery and glory. Obviously it's extreme, but only among the white class could you go to a friend, say we need to kick someone's ass and he can't tell you why, and he responds with whose car are we going to take.
This isn't really just the "white working class" though. It's Boston Irish. They've been portrayed by Hollywood quite frequently.
I think they used shaky cam during the car chase scenes but not during the conversational scenes. If my recollection is right, that's a good system.
Southie (ie South Boston) and some other neighborhoods in the city do have some pretty rough Irish-Americans. I remember reading a good book called "All the Souls" by Michael Patrick MacDonald, who grew up in the all-white South Boston housing projects during the 1970 and 1980s. Evidently, back in the day, Southie was full of gangsters (Whitey Bulger, brother of politician Billy Bulger), drug dealers, dysfunctional families, crazy kids, and all sorts of things you might associate with the underclass.
Blacks use to be terrified to go into Southie, especially after the busing riots in the 1970s. Nowadays, Southie and the other Irish areas are gentrifying pretty quickly. Minorities are now the majority in the Southie projects too.
It's amazing that Southie was able to keep the projects all-white until the early 1990s. Somewhat of a testament to the power of Irish ethnic politicians in Boston and Massachusettes, like the Bulgers.
So a director is just someone good at faking it? Faking being in the know? Faking competence? Then why do all the great directors - Hitchkock, John Ford, Peckinpah, Kazan - put a stamp on their work that marks it as theirs alone?
Southie Irish are not remotely like middle class Irish. I haven't seen the film but I guarantee their pervasive under class harshness has been soft focused. There never has been and probably never will be an American film that is not only sympathetic to the under class but is under class. The overwhelmingly middle class audience wouldn't stand for it. I have never seen a depiction of under class or even working class America that is not a softening and sentimentalizing of those segments of our population in order to make them palatable to the middle class.
I second the fourth Anonymous's recommendation of Winter's Bone. Best movie I've seen all year - and very Albion's Seed-ish.
"Toward the small, sensual pleasures of life, the Irish have spent centuries cultivating aversions."
Whoa, Steve. Talk about waxing lyrical... Whence cometh that poetical flourish?
Idiocracy is a love it or hate it film, apparently.
I'm reminded of Boondock Saints. I don't know if it's because I had the movie built up by word of mouth, or because I can't take more than tiny doses of the Irish-American horseshit these days, but I sat through that whole flick going, "WTF is this shit?"
Twenty years ago Southie was already getting cleaned up, but the projects in Charlestown were still pretty nasty and very rough.
Not the sort of place even a couple of white kids would want to roll through slowly, looking out the windows at folks without they was coming ta visit someone or had some business. It was 89-90, thereabouts, and we were looking for some guy who owned a slip in a little gentrified waterfront development next to the navy yard. Too many young guys started coming out of the buildings and walking over to our car while we were asking where the guy lived.
We rolled. Quick. First (and last) white project I was in that felt like a ghetto black project
dana white is an irish southie and was an amateur boxer. the fertitta brothers let him run his mouth far too much, i have no idea why they allow him to even appear at any PR function for UFC.
lorenzo fertitta has had a lot of control over boxing in nevada for at least 15 years, and over MMA for probably 8 or 9 years. so two italian billionaires let an irish loudmouth run the biggest MMA operation in the US.
I second the fourth Anonymous's recommendation of Winter's Bone.
Let me add to those recommendations. Winter's Bone is a nasty masterpiece of Southern Gothic movie making... directed by a woman! Based on Winter's Bone and The Hurt Locker, I'm not so sure women are reading very much Jane Austen these days.
As for The Town, I don't think it's in the same league with the other recent Boston crime dramas. Too much is lost in the translation from the book to the big screen. Jon Hamm's FBI agent, Frawley, and Jeremy Renner's Irish thug, Jem, are meant as parallel characters. Hamm, much like Don Draper, is an organizational man who happens to work for that most diabolical of organizations, the US Federal government. Jem, on the other hand, is a rebel who remains loyal to his dying neighborhood ("Treason and betrayal all around Jem. Everyone weakening and succumbing to change, to progress, and Jem, the glue, single-handedly holding everything together.")
Ben Affleck's character inhabits a place somewhere in between the two extremes. His decision which way to go provides the movie's drama.
But ultimately I didn't care about Affleck's character and even less about his love interest. It's Renner who steals every scene he's in. And his character is neither a heroin addict nor an alcoholic. He's in no way despondent. Just the opposite, he's quite full of life. Jem is simply an outlaw; he robs bankers rather than being robbed by them, and like all great movie outlaws (Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Bonnie & Clyde, etc), he goes out with guns blazin'. The last of an old breed.
It will be interesting to see what kind of movies all those East Asian and Indian National Merit Scholars will make 25 years now.
Yeats? Brendan Behan? Heck even JM Synge or Sean O'Casey, all took considerable pleasure in the very structure of language, dialect, and earthy, direct attitudes and so on. Most Irish writers (the guys in Ireland, not the Irish-Americans) rejected Yeats mysticism. Synge was fairly brutal in dismissing CuChulain type stuff. Heck both Synge and Behan committed the ultimate sin, they had some affection for the English.
I don't think its fair to label the Irish anhedonic. More like, deeply cynical. After all, the English were literally right next door, fairly similar in makeup, and fabulous successes while the Irish were miserable failures, the first colony of the English. Who were always better organized, better fighters, more deadly fighters, with more people.
To know your own people's failure, and likely continued failure, in pattern that had been repeated for centuries and would continue (Ireland was far easier prey than even Saxon England for the Norsemen) on into the future caused an ever-present sadness. When even the native language disappears into a sea of English, the knowledge that your own patrimony is fading inevitably under the onslaught of better organized cousins is likely to prove painful. And sad.
It was fair to speak of, twenty years after Culloden, the Scottish Enlightenment. Ireland had some remarkable writers, and a few musicians. That was it.
"slyboots said...
The record of leading men becoming directors is somewhat mixed:"
In my opinion, none of them are great directors. None of them seem to have the visual eye that makes a Spielberg, or a Kubrick, or a Ridley Scott.
I don't mind movies about the irish. What I object to is the seemingly ubiquitous use of whiny, moany irish music in movies that have nothing to do with the irish.
"The Town" looked interesting. If your looking for another good irish hoodlum movie, I recommend "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" (from 1973) with Robert Mitchum.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070077/
By the way, I think Renner deserves a lot of credit for his acting in his recent roles because, from what I gather, he's really acting.
dana white is an irish southie and was an amateur boxer.
He was born in Connecticut and grew up in Las Vegas and Maine.
Jody,
How is Dana White a Southie? Wikipedia says he was born in CT and grew up in a bunch of places but not Southie. Can you be a 2nd gen. Southie?
Thanks for the tip about Fertitta. I thought UFC was Dana White 100%.
Interesting that Fertitta is the head of the Nevada Boxing Commiss. when Dana White is so openly dismissive of boxing.
Why do you think that Dana White isn't good for MMA?
And lastly why can no one answer why there isn't one white guy in the US who doesn't lose his cookies when they face a black guy in a boxing ring? If Randy Couture could take down Toney 30 seconds, why are white American boxers so scared when they see a black guy in the ring?
ricpic -- I don't think Hitchcock *was* a great director. In fact, if you see something that rings false in one of his movies it's probably the one thing that was a suggestion of his to the actors. What he *was* was a great producer.
The Charlestown projects retain the loutish, in-your-face Irish xenophobia that was lost long ago in the Southie projects. The Townies are without a doubt the last vestige of the Hibernian criminal world.
Southie was the capital of NE Irish throughout the last century. As members of the clan made it, they moved south to the seaside towns of the South Shore, where I grew up (every Southie girl wass looking for a guy who would take her to Quincy or, if she was really lucky, Hingham!). My brother and me were the ONLY ones at St. Joseph's Grammar School in Holbrook without any Irish blood.
Charleston, on the other hand, was an Irish outpost in a sea of Italians on the North Shore. It abuts the Italian North End, ground zero for the NE Mafia for 100 years. The normal dislike of anyone outside the Irish clan, which in Boston usually meant the Irish/Boston Brahmin Protestant divide, was exacerbated in the Townies by the addition of the Italians running the rackets. Charlestown is the most insular place I've ever been in NE, leading the know Free World in not only bank robberies but in unsolved murders, as the Code of Silence there remains unbroken. The average Boho buying a condo in Charlestown has a much harder time keeping home and auto unmolested than in Southie.
Brutus
By the way, I think Renner deserves a lot of credit for his acting in his recent roles because, from what I gather, he's really acting.
I think I understand what you mean. Renner plays the cocky jackass quite a bit, a role that Sean Penn would play at an earlier point in his career. But, unlike Penn, Renner is actually acting.
I grew up in the midwest but went to high school with a guy that was born and raised in Southie. He confirmed that all the stereotypes about the Southie Irish appear to be true.
People are so used to our inner cities being black and brown war zones that they are fascinated by the sheer novelty of a white inner city neighborhood in a large city persisting into the modern era. Newsweek even did a cover story about Southie in 1994, claiming that it had the most concentrated white poverty in the US. It also helps that so many white Americans can claim Irish ancestry. It lets deracinated whites feel like they are part of some cool sub-culture and not generic "white bread" types. I always find it fascinating how many whites revel in their Irish ancestry, despite the fact that they've been assimilated for generations.
Yeah, I read that story on the white underclass.
I didn't know there were any whites left in the Charleston projects.
If you want to read a first hand account about growing up in Southie, follow this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/macdonald-souls.html
"The Charlestown projects retain the loutish, in-your-face Irish xenophobia that was lost long ago in the Southie projects. The Townies are without a doubt the last vestige of the Hibernian criminal world."
OK, I believe you.
Why no boxers?
I won't give up until I get an answer??
Omni, the quick and dirty answer is a total lack of timing and rhythm. But not a lack of toughness.
Look at the most identifiable Irish/American boxers of the modern era, Freddie Roach and Mickey Ward. Roach, from Dedham MA, went as far as his limited talent could take him. He's doing quite well now as a trainer, but took so many punches that he suffers from Parkinsons. Ward, from the city of Lowell MA, was famous for the amount of abuse he'd withstand for a chance to land that one shot. Ward's half brother Dickie Eklund was also a pro boxer, and he once fought Sugar Ray Leonard.
There have been some tough and talented Micks in the fight game; John L. Sullivan, James J. Braddock and Billy Conn are a few that come to mind. But they've mostly been tough-as-nails guys going a long way on marginal talent, like Jerry Quarry, Tommy Morrison and Gerry Cooney.
Brutus
"He was born in Connecticut and grew up in Las Vegas and Maine."
haha, oh well. just more bullshit from dana white then. i don't know everything about him, but many times he has claimed to have been part of the boxing scene in boston for years. he played that up a lot before UFC 118, too.
"I thought UFC was Dana White 100%."
no. and not only that, but it's pure, blind luck that he has had any success with UFC. he was against the ultimate fighter and did not want the show to air. instead, he literally wanted a reality show about himself, and the fertittas overruled him and put TUF on television instead. in fact he only moved to las vegas because, he claims, he was chased out of boston by organized irish criminals. he called the fertittas and asked them to help him, and they put him in charge of UFC. this was back in 2001 or 2002. UFC of course existed long before that, starting in 1993. the first VHS tape i rented was UFC 4, and the first PPV i saw was UFC 19. this was right around the time john mccain, a major boxing guy, wanted to make MMA illegal.
lorenzo is a long time friend of marc ratner, who used to be in charge of the nevada state athletic commission. so the two guys with the most control over boxing the united states, lorenzo fertitta and marc ratner, are the guys who decided to go full tilt into UFC. they purchased UFC from SEG. dana white had nothing to do with it. lorenzo had the money and connections. in fact these two guys are the guys who put up the money, lawyers, and effort to get MMA legalized in all the dozens of places where it's still illegal. they continue to spend millions of dollars every year trying to get it legal in new york, ontario, et cetera. ratner has to go to these places and explain that MMA is less dangerous than boxing.
"Why do you think that Dana White isn't good for MMA?"
he's fine when he's running operations, and terrible when he does anything related to PR. he's a moron. i mean, are you serious? have you heard this retard talk? he can't get through a public appearance without swearing. again, it's pure, blind, "who do you know" luck that he's in charge of UFC. dana white has a high school level of education, and when he left boston for las vegas, he was like some aerobics or boxercise instructor. basically, he was a failure making no money, busy doing nothing.
"He was born in Connecticut and grew up in Las Vegas and Maine."
haha, oh well. just more bullshit from dana white then. i don't know everything about him, but many times he has claimed to have been part of the boxing scene in boston for years. he played that up a lot before UFC 118, too.
"I thought UFC was Dana White 100%."
no. and not only that, but it's pure, blind luck that he has had any success with UFC. he was against the ultimate fighter and did not want the show to air. instead, he literally wanted a reality show about himself, and the fertittas overruled him and put TUF on television instead. in fact he only moved to las vegas because, he claims, he was chased out of boston by organized irish criminals. he called the fertittas and asked them to help him, and they put him in charge of UFC. this was back in 2001 or 2002. UFC of course existed long before that, starting in 1993. the first VHS tape i rented was UFC 4, and the first PPV i saw was UFC 19. this was right around the time john mccain, a major boxing guy, wanted to make MMA illegal.
lorenzo is a long time friend of marc ratner, who used to be in charge of the nevada state athletic commission. so the two guys with the most control over boxing the united states, lorenzo fertitta and marc ratner, are the guys who decided to go full tilt into UFC. they purchased UFC from SEG. dana white had nothing to do with it. lorenzo had the money and connections. in fact these two guys are the guys who put up the money, lawyers, and effort to get MMA legalized in all the dozens of places where it's still illegal. they continue to spend millions of dollars every year trying to get it legal in new york, ontario, et cetera. ratner has to go to these places and explain that MMA is less dangerous than boxing.
"And lastly why can no one answer why there isn't one white guy in the US who doesn't lose his cookies when they face a black guy in a boxing ring?"
there are a couple right now, even though euro americans are generally not interested in boxing anymore. after kelly pavlik brutally knocked out edison miranda, he then brutally knocked out HBO boxer, and 2000 olympic bronze medalist, jermain taylor.
also, the jewish guys who run boxing promotion and television in the US have an intense and burning hatred of european gentiles, and have worked diligently for a long time to minimize any coverage or discussion of europeans defeating africans. again, i don't think all jewish people feel this way, but clearly, a segment of the US jewish population does, and almost every important figure in US boxing who is jewish, clearly feels this way, so much so that they have trouble hiding it.
i didn't really know much about this before moving to vegas and getting into boxing, but after 10 years of watching the sport, the evidence is overwhelming. it's similar to my experience watching the NBA. after 10 years, the evidence was overwhelming that some referees were fixing some games.
anyway, in boxing, in the US, where jewish guys like ross greenburg have their influence, they have worked so very hard to make sure nobody sees africans being defeated by europeans on their televisions. they absolutely, positively do not want a potential HBO or ESPN audience of 10 million americans for any boxing match which might involve that kind of thing. it really screws up their "invincible black superhumans" angle, where they use some other group, in this case africans, in a direct attack on europeans. in 2010 they offer the US audience only midget boxing. they want americans to only know about 150 pound midgets and smaller, because things aren't going so well for africans above 150 pounds.
in the US, the jewish boxing guys pull goofy stuff like pretending bernard hopkins is the best boxer in boxing, when he could not TKO roy jones after 12 rounds, only 1 match after jones had been TKO'd in only 2 minutes by australian dan green. when dan green pummels roy jones, it didn't happen, won't be reported on, and does not merit any coverage or discussion. certainly it does not put dan green on their radar. he's the wrong race.
i know a good amount about pro boxing, and some about amateur. i have been trying to avoid classic jody "wall of text" posts, but felt like i should post here.
"And lastly why can no one answer why there isn't one white guy in the US who doesn't lose his cookies when they face a black guy in a boxing ring?"
there are a couple right now, even though euro americans are generally not interested in boxing anymore. after kelly pavlik brutally knocked out edison miranda, he then brutally knocked out HBO boxer, and 2000 olympic bronze medalist, jermain taylor.
also, the jewish guys who run boxing promotion and television in the US have an intense and burning hatred of european gentiles, and have worked diligently for a long time to minimize any coverage or discussion of europeans defeating africans. again, i don't think all jewish people feel this way, but clearly, a segment of the US jewish population does, and almost every important figure in US boxing who is jewish, clearly feels this way, so much so that they have trouble hiding it.
i didn't really know much about this before moving to vegas and getting into boxing, but after 10 years of watching the sport, the evidence is overwhelming. it's similar to my experience watching the NBA. after 10 years, the evidence was overwhelming that some referees were fixing some games.
anyway, in boxing, in the US, where jewish guys like ross greenburg have their influence, they have worked so very hard to make sure nobody sees africans being defeated by europeans on their televisions. they absolutely, positively do not want a potential HBO or ESPN audience of 10 million americans for any boxing match which might involve that kind of thing. it really screws up their "invincible black superhumans" angle, where they use some other group, in this case africans, in a direct attack on europeans.
in 2010 they offer the US audience only midget boxing. they want americans to only know about 150 pound midgets and smaller, because things aren't going so well for africans above 150 pounds. of course, they have plenty of bullshit lies about how this is because of the NFL and NBA, as if every african adult male on EARTH is actually in the NFL and NBA now. i've demolished these arguments several times here.
it has nothing at all to do with the NBA, simply nothing. those are two different talent pools. but increasing NFL salaries after the 1987 NFLPA strike is a moderate factor in reducing african participating in boxing. in the US. for 40 million africans. it has zero bearing on the over 1 billion africans outside of the US. they're mostly dirt poor, and boxing appeals to the dirt poor. some of them even harbor burning hatred for europeans. many of them are exactly the kind of people would LOVE to be paid, to be PAID!, to beat the shit out of europeans. holy cow. what could possibly be a better opportunity in life than that for some of these guys? to be paid 10 million dollars to beat the shit out of europeans while other europeans cheer them on! it's like some parallel dimension, some kind of alternate world, where they get paid millions of dollars to bludgeon european men, then get to have sex with european women.
oh wait, according to US sports analysts, they're all in the NFL or NBA now. every athletic adult male in nigeria, a nation of 140 million people, is actually already in the NFL or NBA, so they can't box.
in reality, almost none of them are. in reality, plenty of africans from around the world are hungry to be boxing champions, but they're getting beat. from africa, from the caribbean, from europe, from brazil, worldwide participation of africans in professional boxing is higher now than it has ever been. in cuba, one of the communist nations where it was illegal to become a professional boxer, plenty of africans from the cuban sports program are boxing professionally today.
back in the US, the jewish boxing guys pull goofy stuff like pretending bernard hopkins is the best boxer in boxing, when he could not TKO roy jones after 12 rounds, only 1 match after jones had been TKO'd in 2 minutes by australian dan green.
when dan green pummels roy jones, it didn't happen, won't be reported on, and does not merit any coverage or discussion. it does not torpedo a PPV between hopkins and jones by ruining the credibility of jones, because dan green does not exist. he never TKO'd roy jones in 2 minutes. that never happened.
in 2010 they offer the US audience only midget boxing. they want americans to only know about 150 pound midgets and smaller, because things aren't going so well for africans above 150 pounds. of course, they have plenty of bullshit lies about how this is because of the NFL and NBA, as if every african adult male on EARTH is actually in the NFL and NBA now. i've demolished these arguments several times here.
it has nothing at all to do with the NBA, simply nothing. those are two different talent pools. but increasing NFL salaries after the 1987 NFLPA strike is a moderate factor in reducing african participating in boxing. in the US. for 40 million africans. it has zero bearing on the over 1 billion africans outside of the US. they're mostly dirt poor, and boxing appeals to the dirt poor. some of them even harbor burning hatred for europeans. many of them are exactly the kind of people would LOVE to be paid, to be PAID!, to beat the shit out of europeans. holy cow. what could possibly be a better opportunity in life than that for some of these guys? to be paid 10 million dollars to beat the shit out of europeans while other europeans cheer them on! it's like some parallel dimension, some kind of alternate world, where they get paid millions of dollars to bludgeon european men, then get to have sex with european women.
oh wait, according to US sports analysts, they're all in the NFL or NBA now. every athletic adult male in nigeria, a nation of 140 million people, is actually already in the NFL or NBA, so they can't box.
in reality, almost none of them are. in reality, plenty of africans from around the world are hungry to be boxing champions, but they're getting beat. from africa, from the caribbean, from europe, from brazil, worldwide participation of africans in professional boxing is higher now than it has ever been. in cuba, one of the communist nations where it was illegal to become a professional boxer, plenty of africans from the cuban sports program are boxing professionally today.
back in the US, the jewish boxing guys pull goofy stuff like pretending bernard hopkins is the best boxer in boxing, when he could not TKO roy jones after 12 rounds, only 1 match after jones had been TKO'd in 2 minutes by australian dan green.
when dan green pummels roy jones, it didn't happen, won't be reported on, and does not merit any coverage or discussion. it does not torpedo a PPV between hopkins and jones by ruining the credibility of jones, because dan green does not exist. he never TKO'd roy jones in 2 minutes. that never happened.
not to say there are no good african boxers in 2010, because there are plenty. there are lots of good black american boxers who are champions in 2010, and above 150 pounds too. steve cunningham is pretty good, chad dawson is decent, andre dirrell is doing OK in the super 6. but my goodness, has the US sports media truly gone "1984" style over the issue of european boxers being competitive with african boxers. this is definitely NOT happening if they have anything to say about it. "We don't show that," is pretty much their policy.
i know a good amount about pro boxing, and some about amateur. i have been trying to avoid classic jody "wall of text" posts, but felt like i should post here due to omnivore's demands. also, decline of US dominance in boxing is also part of the trend of decline of US performance relative to the international field in many sports. the US simply does not enjoy the vast advantage over the international field in 2010 that it held in 1990. this is happening in baseball, ice hockey, tennis, wrestling, swimming, track & field, volleyball, and so forth. the US wrestling team just put in it's worst performance in 30 years at the 2010 world championships and came away with 0 medals. even india had a world champion wrestler this time. american tennis players went 0 for 4 again in 2010. an american tennis player hasn't won a slam since, what, 2003?
Hey Jody,
I appreciate your input on boxing. I absolutely didn't know these facts regarding White and UFC. Re White, no I haven't heard him, just read his comments. He struck me as being over-wrought but not an asshole. Your observations put White's dissing of boxing into a different perspective. So in reality he's really an employee of boxing promoters. Yet he never fails to go on TV and diss boxing. What's going on there?
"back in the US, the jewish boxing guys pull goofy stuff like pretending bernard hopkins is the best boxer in boxing, "
Which Jewish guys would these be? Mike Silver? He thinks Bernard Hopkins is an overrated tomato can.
Please give names rather than offering a general smear.
Virtually all the boxing writers gave Hopkins NO chance against Pavlik. Virtually all of them thought Pavlik would demolish the old guy.
So Jody, what happened in that fight? Hopkins completely dominated the white kid. I wanted Pavlik to win or at least make it a game fight. He got humiliated. He wasn't there. (And against Martinez....it was embarrassing.)
"when dan green pummels roy jones, it didn't happen, won't be reported on, and does not merit any coverage or discussion."
Jody take your meds. I don't pay as much attention to these matters as you do but I distinctly remember reading about it.
Mike Silver also believes that Roy Jones is an overrated fraud with great reflexes and possibly a steroid production.
"it does not torpedo a PPV between hopkins and jones by ruining the credibility of jones, because dan green does not exist. he never TKO'd roy jones in 2 minutes. that never happened."
I really don't know what you are talking about here, jody. The reason a PPV happened was because Jones and Hopkins are among the few draws in boxing, and it meant money.
Dr. Margaret Goodman was against the match because of both boxers eroded skills and she was scared of a life-threatening injury. But it happened because of money.
Another thing jody: if boxing is the province of poverty, how do you explain Klitschko? Sugar Ray Leonard? Muhammad Ali (completely middle class, all three.)
Brutus,
The examples you gave are older generation.
I'd like to know why no boxers come out of the Irish projects NOW.
Jody,
Interesting stuff about Dana White. It sure puts his dissing of boxing as a sport in a different perspective, given that he is a bought and paid for creation of boxing promoters. Which I did not know.
Regarding the Jewish guys who you claim have created Bernard Hopkins, who would these be? The only boxing expert I follow is Mike Silver, who thinks that Hopkins and Jones are both overrated tomato cans who would never have even been in the top 10 back in the 1950s.
Every boxing writer gave Hopkins virtually no chance against Pavlik. Hopkins humiliated Pavlik. What happened there?
Regarding Green's TKO of Jones, I suggest you take your meds. I don't even follow boxing and I heard about that. Of course it was reported.
Brutus,
The examples you gave are all from the old days.
I'm just wondering why, if boxing is the natural sport of the poor, and if it's so easy to get a shot at a title nowadays due to lack of competition, there are no boxers from the Irish projects.
My own guess (and it's ONLY a guess) is that white Americans are so intimidated by blacks they don't want to contend.
E. Europeans aren't intimidated, and they win. Examples: the Klitschkos, and the recent bout between the Russian Pirog and Danny Jacobs.
Did you see that? Pirog was supposed to lose against the black American up and comer in his 1st US fight. He was supposed to be intimidated. He didn't get that memo and knocked out Jacobs in the 5th round.
Sweet!
Omni, do you think I was kidding in the first line of my post? We're not talking about tremendous physical skills here, just heart, guts and iron chins. Will only overcomes skill in the movies.
If you saw Mickey Ward fight you'd know that he was intimidated by no one.
But let's not kid ourselves about the poverty in these projects in Southie and Charlestown. These people are poor, especially in comparison to the rest of the People's Republic of Massachusetts, where the per capita income is $65K. But the poverty and despair are nowhere near that a few miles away in Roxbury and Mattapan, our more colorful districts. You're not dodging bullets in Southie. Southie leads the state in per capita permanent disability payments, and is second only to the Mormon polygamists in the Arizona Strip in white welfare. Good Will Hunting gets the Southie attitude just right; Will sees them doing the same things (boozing at the L Street Tavern, working menial jobs or collecting the government dime) 20 years later, except they'll be bringing the next generation to Little League games. You don't see that sort of attitude in Roxbury.
This is all changing here, though, as the government's Section 8 resettlement program is bringing the underclass of all stripes to the suburbs. Over the past 2 years I've seen as many new residents with shamrock tattoos as with ebon complexions or ESL certificates here in my little town with too much rental property 10 miles north of Boston. In a shocking (to the local moonbats) turn of events, housebreaks are up 80%...
Eventually, the projects here will be entirely NAM.
Kinda OT-Did you see Gone Baby Gone? Jill Quigg, the foul-mouthed best friend, is a real Old Colony Projects girl. She was pointed out to Affleck by location scouts who heard her colorfully cursing some local boyos whose pitbull was too close to her kid. She couldn't attend the movie opening in Boston because she was in jail!
Brutus
Hitchcock was an adequate director of actors but a great director of camera and crew. Also he should've had a writing credit on all his films. But yeah it's true he was more a producer than anything. All so-called auteurs are similar to the old-time producers who wrote, cast, edited, determined visual style etc.
We've neglected to mention Welles in discussing actor-directors so let me remind the board of that genius. Uneven actor/great director.
Don't know what this fellow Klitschko directed. Can't find him on IMDB.
David,
"Don't know what this fellow Klitschko directed. Can't find him on IMDB."
You're joking, right? Somehow the humor doesn't come out on a monitor.
Brutus,
You and I are talking past one another. I can't even get good info out of you the way I do jody.
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